Being the Hands and Feet of Jesus and Touching the Hem of Christ's Robe

I've been hearing these two phrases a lot lately and they have me thinking about what they really mean. Let's start with the first one.. Being the Hands and Feet of Jesus. What does that mean? Well, it's easy to be the hands and feet of those people we love and cherish. Ok, maybe not always easy, but it's easier than someone we don't like. Right? I'm pretty sure though, that Jesus ministered to those who weren't always socially accepted, extremely wealthy, or even dressed nice for that matter. Now, Jesus did minister to everyone. An example of this would be the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus isn't leaving anyone out while he is teaching. He wants all of use to hear his words and to have that relationship with him. Take the woman at the well. We've all heard it before that she was a, well, woman of the night so-to-speak in better terms. It would have been socially unacceptable for Jesus to be talking to this woman. Yet, despite her past, or present, God knew her future. Despite all the critcism Christ would maybe get for talking with this woman, no person is worthless in the eyes of Christ. Christ reached out to the needy, the hungry, the poor, the adulterers, the lame, the sick, etc. When we think of being the hands and feet of Christ, we need to know what that really means. It means, to be the hands and feet of Christ. lol. It means to reach out and show the love of Christ not just to those who are in our "circle of friends", but also to those who you probably wouldn't even think of being friends with. To those who the world would consider socially unacceptable. In blessing others, you are in turn blessing yourself as well. Not as though that should be the only reason we are reaching out. lol. The Bible tells us in Ephesians 5:1-2 that we are to be like Christ. We are to immitate him. I think that even within the church there needs to be some reaching out of our comfort zones. How many people come into a church for the first time and are never once met with a friendly face? Now I am not trying to make people feel guilty here. I am not about that. Guilt-driven service is just not right. (meaning where someone makes you feel guilty to where you serve out of guilt and not out of your own heart and desire) I am passionate about serving. It is my love language. I love to offer up babysitting or offer up to bring food or do small things or big things. For a long time I wanted to glory. I wanted the attention for all the good things I was doing. Through A LOT of humbling, I've actually been enjoying being in the background. I don't like the attention, I don't like the praise, and I don't like what it does to me. It makes me prideful. In reality, it doesn't matter who sees it and what kind of praise you get for whatever because the only one it really matters to is God. Doing it for praise purposes kind of defeats the purpose and elevated self instead of God. Something God is working on with me. I fall into old habits, but am quickly reminded who it's really for. There is that pride word again, but that is for another post. lol. Ok, back to being the hands and feet of Christ. Christ didn't care who saw him talking to who or what people thought about him. He was with the begger, the tax collector, and many others. Honestly, if you look at his lineage, it really doesn't surprise me. He comes from a line of everything under the sun, from murderer to harlet. To me, that is awesome. Anyway, I just wanted to encourage all of you to take some time and really pray about how you can be the hands and feet of Christ. Take some time out of your day to drop cookies at your fire department or police department. Take some time to invite a stressed out mom over for lunch, to the park, or just to come over to your own messy house, just so that she can have an adult conversation. Reach out to the kids in your community or to the elderly couple living next door who needs help with different things. Write your pastor a note of encouragement. Anything! Whatever abilty God gave you, use it to serve him and bless others. You never know how God will use you to plant a seed while being His hands and feet.

Touching the hem of Christ's robe. I hear that and I immediately think of the woman that bled for 12 years. She was living outside the city because in those days a woman was found to be unclean while she bled. So for 12 long years, she was untouched because she was unclean. She had heard of this Jesus who was coming and she, in total and complete faith, just wanted to touch the hem of Christ to be healed. What great faith this woman had. The longing, the desire just to touch her Savior fully knowing she would be healed. I won't go fully into the story, but I think of her faith. She went to this crowd around Christ just be able to touch the hem of his clothes. I think of how often I fail to even come to Christ in prayer for something that is going on. I fail to even believe that Christ will answer my prayers. Imagine how our lives would be if we just had faith that He will take care of us. We like to worry about how we are going to get this or that and how this will work out. Guilty. The Bible tells us to be "anxious for nothing" in Matthew. We are to come to Christ, trusting and knowing that he will answer our prayers. It might not come out how we were thinking, but then again, I have found that none of the "plans" for my life have come out how I really wanted them too or thought they should for that matter. I have to admit that it's hard to come to Christ and have a deep, intimate relationship with Him when you have doubt, pride, anger, jealousy, and the list goes on. God recently has been showing me that I have a pride issue. No, not just a pride issue. I have an enormous pride issue. Pride comes into our lives very subtly until one day, we think we don't need Christ. We think that we have it all and that we are doing it on our own. The truth is that God and God alone gave us that ability, that wisdom, that knowledge, well, everything. It's funny how quickly we forget who we came from or where our talent is from when a little compliment comes our way. I used to throw myself into positions that would get praise. And sometimes it wouldn't even be that. It would be a random note of encouragement telling me how godly of a woman I am and how this person really admires me, etc, etc. Funny how a few innocent comments could fill up my head. This made me feel good. This made me think that "Why yes, yes you are right. I am pretty amazing!" Sad, but true. Then this intense pressure to maintain those compliments becomes very stressful. If I stop getting those compliments, then I must be failing. It's so hard to have all of that pressure on you! Oh wait, it isn't about me. That's right. There is no pressure to be like Christ when everything you do is for His praise, His glory, and His honor. It's amazing how a small compliment can quickly, no rapidly destroy a person's relationship with Christ. Now that is not to say that we shouldn't be encouraging each other or lifting each other up in Christ or paying a nice compliment. What the person does with it is completely on them and God will deal with them. Satan is tricky, very tricky. I think that through the ladies Bible study and Sunday School, I have been learning more and more of how real Satan really is. Not as though I didn't believe before, just real as in, how much he is really really attacking us at every corner. He doesn't want us to seek after God. To desire God. To love God. To grow in God. Satan is not interested in us and does not care about us. We are just pawns in his battle with the Lord, and he will try and try and try and never give up to keep us from touching the hem of Christ's robe. Satan never gives up, which should drive us even more to deepen our relationship with Christ. It should kind of give us a stick-it-to-him type attitude toward Satan. Ok, probably not a good reason to grow closer to God just to get back at Satan, but really, sometimes that is just what I want to do. Kind of say, "What are you going to do now Satan? Bring it!" Yeah, probably not the best attitude. lol. But God did create me this way... just sayin'. lol. Ok, enough being sassy. ;) Touching the hem of Christ seems like it is so hard to accomplish, but it's not. You want to be blessed in touching Him. The Bible tells us, Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it shall be open to you. (paraphrasing) All we have to do is seek after him and trust him and we will touch the hem of Christ's robe.